Back in the late '80s and early '90s, Marc Summers was the original host of the messy children's game show "Double Dare" on Nickelodeon. For more than 500 episodes, he was surrounded by sloppy physical challenges, green slime and an infamously chaotic, often slippery obstacle course. But several years after the show ended, Summers made a stunning admission on a 1997 "Oprah Show": He has OCD.
"I never knew what OCD was. I just thought, 'There's got to be something wrong with me. Am I crazy?'" Summer said back then. "And If you watch the first 65 episodes [of 'Double Dare'], I never got a drop on me."
It was the first time he'd really opened up about having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and while Summers says it was "fantastic" to help educate the public and let people know more about OCD, not everyone reacted positively to his appearance. As Summers tells "Oprah: Where Are They Now?", the admission had a damaging impact on his career.
"For some reason, people in the industry weren't ready for it," he says today in the above video. "Rumors got spread that I was a freak and that I was difficult to work with."
There was one job in particular, Summers says, that he was fired from specifically because of the rumors related to his disorder.
"I was signed up to do the 'Hollywood Squares' version that Tom Bergeron actually did. The next thing I knew, I was fired before we even got started, supposedly because my reputation was that I was difficult to work with because of the OCD," he says.
There's no shortage of difficult personalities in the entertainment industry, but the now-Food Network host says this isn't an accurate characterization of his own persona and points to a clear double standard that he's experienced as a celebrity with OCD.
"There's stigmas," Summers says. "It's funny -- you could be a drug addict or an alcoholic and get a pass in Hollywood, but guy's got OCD? Holy mackerel, that's crazy."
"Oprah: Where Are They Now?" airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on OWN. Find OWN on your TV.
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